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In recent years, wrestling games have felt like they’ve been a bit quiet. While there have been some signs of life, WWE could potentially break away from WWE 2K games, and AEW teaming up with Yukes to create their game, fans will soon be able to get good wrestling games. However, most wrestling fans still seem to stick with the older games with a sense of joyous nostalgia.
Two of the games routinely listed as fan favorites are WWE: No Mercy, released exclusively for the Nintendo 64, and SmackDown! Here Comes The Pain, which was released on the PlayStation 2.
10 No Mercy – Quality Roster
WWE released four games on the Nintendo 64, including WWF No Mercy in November 2000. Since No Mercy was the last game to be released on the Nintendo 64, it had the largest roster of all four games with a roster of 74 wrestlers. The roster was a marked increase from previous games and included a wide range of Attitude-era stars and legends of the past, including Andre the Giant, British Bulldog, the Dudley Boyz and the Radicalz.
A few days after No Mercy was released on the N64, WWE released SmackDown 2: Know Your Role for Playstation 1, featuring a roster of 66 playable characters, fewer than No Mercy, which came out previously. It wasn’t until SmackDown vs Raw 2011 that a WWE game saw a roster of over 70 playable characters. To date, the game is still regarded as one of the best playable rosters of all time.
9 Here Comes the Pain – New Match Types
Since the introduction of the SmackDown series, WWE has tried to include a variety of different types of matches in the game. WWE staples such as the Ladder Match, Tables Matches, Steel Cage, Royal Rumble and Hell in a Cell were already playable in previous games, but SmackDown: Here Comes The Pain introduced the First Blood Match, Elimination Chamber and the Bra & Panty match type in a wrestling video game for the first time.
While First Blood Matches and Bra & Panty matches had been on WWE programming for years by the time the game was released, the Elimination Chamber was new at the time and fans enjoyed the chance to play in the exciting new structure that was introduced to WWE by Eric Bischoff.
8 No mercy – fighting style
No Mercy was the first WWE game to use AKI in WCW vs NWO: World Tour and WCW/NWO: Revenge. The fighting style allowed players to use a combination of different attacks and grappling maneuvers to knock down their opponents before pinning them down or forcing them to submit. Players should tap a button for lighter shots and grabs and hold the button for more powerful shots and grabs.
A finisher was also called in for a limited time after a player filled his momentum meter, which fluctuated depending on which wrestler was in control of the match. Once a wrestler had a finisher, they could perform a strong grapple and hit their opponent with their wrestler’s respective finishing move.
7 HCTP – Submission System
In previous wrestling games, a wrestler would be placed in a submission move for a short period of time and the wrestler in the hold would reach the ropes, give up, or the wrestler applying the submission would simply release the hold. Of course, submission moves that finished had a slightly higher chance of forcing opponents to submit, but even the difference between these and regular submissions was minimal.
This was until Here Comes the Pain introduced a new Submission minigame. Once a submission was locked, both players had to frantically stomp on the buttons until the submission bar hit either escape or submit.
6 No Mercy – Career Mode
Both No Mercy and Here Comes the Pain have popular career modes, where the storyline changes depending on the outcome of the respective match. In more recent games, the story modes have been very linear, with certain outcomes requiring the player to reboot, and most matches have certain points that the player must complete to progress through the story. This often means there’s little point in replaying the story mode as it all feels the same.
That wasn’t the case with No Mercy, as the game’s storyline could branch out in multiple different directions, bringing in a lot of value by replaying the story mode multiple times with different wrestlers to see how the different stories play out.
5 HCTP – Damage Meter
One of the many new features Here Comes the Pain introduced to WWE games was a wrestler damage meter. This meant you could effectively target one of your opponent’s body parts and break them apart by targeting the same area over and over. This also helped create a greater emphasis on submission moves, which could also be used to target a specific body part. Kurt Angle could accurately target his opponent’s legs by setting them up for the ankle lock, or Chris Jericho could weaken his opponent’s back before closing in on Jericho’s walls to make them tap.
4 No Mercy – Modified Versions
It is a testament to the popularity of WWF No Mercy that wrestling fans continue to play the game. Even now, 20 years later, wrestling fans will still load up an emulator to play No Mercy again. It wasn’t just the game’s popular wrestling style, which has since been replaced by an overly complicated system that no company has been able to improve upon. The game is also popular due to the number of modified versions available for the game.
Some of the modified versions include a version with NXT wrestlers, WCW wrestlers, and WWE legends. However, the most impressive modified version of the game is said to feature a roster of nearly 300 playable characters and a wide variety of both female and male wrestlers from multiple generations. The modified version also features wrestlers from other promotions, including TNA and AEW.
3 HCTP – Fast Gameplay
One big element that the newer WWE games have been sorely lacking is the gameplay. Here Comes the Pain was the last of a popular series that allowed wrestling fans to have fast, enjoyable fights without the game being weighed down by the graphical upgrades that would come later and often slow down the fun and fast-paced feel of the earlier games. WWE tried to bring back the chaotic arcade feel of the older games when they released WWE 2K BattleGrounds in 2020.
2 No Mercy – Retro Nostalgic Feelings
While many old-fashioned wrestling video games have aged badly, WWF No Mercy stands out as a retro classic. The game is held to such a high standard that even today many fans and wrestlers still refer to it as a benchmark for modern wrestling games to live up to. Commenting on All Elite Wrestling’s first foray into the console video game market, former AEW World Champion and Executive Vice President Kenny Omega stated that the game would take inspiration from WWF No Mercy, not bad for a game over 20 years old. .
1 HCTP – Store up to 5 finishers
For the last time in a WWE game, a wrestler could save up to five finishers at once, hitting their opponents one after the other. Unlike other video games, where finishers are only available through momentum, the SmackDown game series would give players finishers by making moves and taunts on their opponents. As the player got more finishers, it became easier and easier to unlock more finishers as the bar filled up faster. There was also no way to lose the progress you made other than using a finisher on your opponent. These finisher tokens also allowed you to back out of your opponent’s finisher, and with two finishers you could hit your opponent’s finisher on it.
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